Dev blog 120 - Localization
Hey folks!
During the course of Early Access, we’ve gotten a steady stream of requests to localize the game to various languages. In this post I want to explain the situation.
When we launched the game to Early Access last year, the plan was to be in EA for some 4-6 months, to give time to add some of the content we still had on our todo lists, work on any feedback we’d receive from our players and take that time to localize the game. The game was QA tested before that to find the most obvious issues, and to be honest, we thought the game was in a better state than it really was.
Thankfully, our players gave us superb feedback and we realized the error of our ways :)
The game needed more development time, and more features and content was added during the last year than we originally anticipated. As the saying goes: no plan survives contact.
That brings us to localization. At the time, we didn’t have the full information about the amount of text we’d end up with. There were a few encounters that were still being worked on, and some parts of the game text was still in flux. We thought we’d get it done within about a month, and pass it on for localization. As such, we didn’t yet have precise numbers for the cost of translating the game to other languages.
Unfortunately, we’ve painted ourselves into a corner with this aspect. When we started creating the game, we did not anticipate we’d really end up with this much text. We don’t regret making the game this way, we’re happy with what we’ve made, but it does present a real logistical problem for translations.
For context, the game has around 250 000 words, which is between 550 and 950 pages of text, depending on spacing. As we’re a small indie team, we don’t exactly have a lot of resources to do expensive things, and localization is apparently very expensive. Each individual language costs anywhere between 20 and 45 thousand euros (pending language difficulty, etc.). To translate the game at this scale would cost almost as much as the development cost over the entire Early Access period.
Ultimately, because this would double the development budget, we decided to rather make the game as mechanically solid and fun as we could. That means the game won’t ship with languages other than English.
Of course, there’s the option to use crowd-sourced translations, but that comes with some risk as well. We’d want to make sure we are able to control the quality of the translations, ensure the important meanings and narrative tidbits get across correctly, all the while keeping the same old-timey English style in the various languages. That requires more logistical work on our end, which we don't have the manpower for.
For those that won’t buy the game unless it’s translated to their language, we are really sorry. We’re just 8 people conscious of our budget and we can only do so much.
All that said, since the game can be modded, it’s ultimately possible for anyone to take this into their own hands and start a crowd-sourced campaign to translate the game and make that a mod. We just wouldn’t be able to guarantee the quality of it.
If you’re interested in making a mod like that, you can always join our Discord server and ask how to go about actually making it, we’d be happy to help with that part.
MarkoP
During the course of Early Access, we’ve gotten a steady stream of requests to localize the game to various languages. In this post I want to explain the situation.
When we launched the game to Early Access last year, the plan was to be in EA for some 4-6 months, to give time to add some of the content we still had on our todo lists, work on any feedback we’d receive from our players and take that time to localize the game. The game was QA tested before that to find the most obvious issues, and to be honest, we thought the game was in a better state than it really was.
Thankfully, our players gave us superb feedback and we realized the error of our ways :)
The game needed more development time, and more features and content was added during the last year than we originally anticipated. As the saying goes: no plan survives contact.
That brings us to localization. At the time, we didn’t have the full information about the amount of text we’d end up with. There were a few encounters that were still being worked on, and some parts of the game text was still in flux. We thought we’d get it done within about a month, and pass it on for localization. As such, we didn’t yet have precise numbers for the cost of translating the game to other languages.
Unfortunately, we’ve painted ourselves into a corner with this aspect. When we started creating the game, we did not anticipate we’d really end up with this much text. We don’t regret making the game this way, we’re happy with what we’ve made, but it does present a real logistical problem for translations.
For context, the game has around 250 000 words, which is between 550 and 950 pages of text, depending on spacing. As we’re a small indie team, we don’t exactly have a lot of resources to do expensive things, and localization is apparently very expensive. Each individual language costs anywhere between 20 and 45 thousand euros (pending language difficulty, etc.). To translate the game at this scale would cost almost as much as the development cost over the entire Early Access period.
Ultimately, because this would double the development budget, we decided to rather make the game as mechanically solid and fun as we could. That means the game won’t ship with languages other than English.
Of course, there’s the option to use crowd-sourced translations, but that comes with some risk as well. We’d want to make sure we are able to control the quality of the translations, ensure the important meanings and narrative tidbits get across correctly, all the while keeping the same old-timey English style in the various languages. That requires more logistical work on our end, which we don't have the manpower for.
For those that won’t buy the game unless it’s translated to their language, we are really sorry. We’re just 8 people conscious of our budget and we can only do so much.
All that said, since the game can be modded, it’s ultimately possible for anyone to take this into their own hands and start a crowd-sourced campaign to translate the game and make that a mod. We just wouldn’t be able to guarantee the quality of it.
If you’re interested in making a mod like that, you can always join our Discord server and ask how to go about actually making it, we’d be happy to help with that part.
MarkoP